Blog: The Prosecutor’s Request for a Ruling on the ICC’s Jurisdiction over the Deportation of Rohingya from Myanmar to Bangladesh: A Gender Perspective

Today, Andrea Raab, our Legal Intern, and Siobhan Hobbs, our Senior Legal Officer, published a blog post on EJIL: Talk! – Blog of the European Journal of International Law. The post provides a gender perspective on the Prosecutor’s recent request for a ruling on the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction over the deportation of Rohingya from Myanmar (a State not party to the ICC) to Bangladesh (an ICC State Party).

It argues that charges of deportation could be a blessing in disguise for gender justice, given that sexual and gender-based crimes committed in their entirety on Myanmar territory cannot be brought as individual charges but may be considered a coercive factor for purposes of establishing the crime of deportation. Not only is it legally permissible to consider sexual violence within the realm of the crime of deportation, but it is also imperative that the Prosecution does so: It may be the only avenue for Rohingya victims of sexual and gender-based crimes to obtain justice, and thus the only way to hold perpetrators accountable.